Home   Help Search Login Register  

Recent Posts

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 10
21
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Undeceived on 04 Feb 2024, 02:45:19 »
Great, you're now in the phase of the campaign that wasn't released in the last version. Keep coming the good feedback! :good:

These preparation missions are completely new. But there won't be so many conversations in the next ones.

Oh yeah, Jegor and his brother Lukas... Try to forget their story from the last version. They are rather supposed to come across as some mean assholes, making fun of some others, etc. :D So maybe the player wants to leave them behind in the camp. The "problem" is that Jegor is one of the most experienced fighters of the whole team. He might be the best after Kamil and maybe Ivan from team WOLF (who will only join later, if he survives the mission 14). Lukas is somewhat experienced too and he even is a medic. So the player has to choose if he wants these assholes in the team or not. If he/she leaves them behind, they feel so insulted that they leave the camp and are gone. :D

Thanks for your feedback on The Picture. I was looking forward to that. These were some major changes.
 
Btw., I'll try to adress all issues you are reporting. Ok, almost all. :) Keep them coming, even if I don't comment all of them, I'm taking note of them all.
22
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Clayman on 03 Feb 2024, 21:30:16 »
So finally I found some time to continue playing...


The Picture
When you said you expanded the mission, I expected some smaller tweaks here and there, more activity at the castle or something. But damn, that was a pleasant surprise. Very nice changes overall.  :good:
I particularly liked that you went with the KSK guys this time. Not only do they look badass, we have also met them before (and we have seen how badass they are).

One minor thing that felt a little bit weird was when Tomas returned to Devils Castle alone at the end, he suddenly used the callsign Lynx, while previously he was always referred to by NATO as Cerny, Chernarussian or Resistance. It felt a bit strange that it was changed during the mission kinda out of nowhere. However, the callsign being used by Tomas' group afterwards is consistent. It's just something I noticed. (or maybe I missed something somewhere.)

Although from a strategic standpoint it would have been better to bring the camera to a safe spot, I decided to go with the KSK to help the Czechs, because of more action and stuff. But probably I guess it doesn't make that much of a difference, as eventually I end up doing Martins task anyways.

Overall those where some very welcome changes that made the mission a lot more enjoyable. (And a nice way to get rid of that extraction helicopter.^^) Great work.


The Mole
Now this was a tricky one. I remember the last time I played this, I had severe problems taking out the officers and eventually the mission won and I had to give up. I do indeed like the idea of this mission, using the teamswitch as an design element. It's a whole different challenge, and a really welcome one. But at the same time it's really a test for my patience.^^
While I did manage to beat the mission this time, I still had some problems here and there.

After taking out the first officer, the three guys on the street on the other side of the building were in danger mode constantly observing the area where the officer has been. They stayed this way for the rest of the mission, however there was no alarm raised so I could continue. The second officer was probably the easiest one, but the third one I ended up taking out with the DMR from afar. Not very clean and stealthy, I wouldn't even have thought about that if you hadn't mentioned that in a future version you want to prevent this option, but it worked for now and I could finally move on. Probably have to come up with another tactic the next time I play this.^^

Probably it's me that I'm not patient enough to crawl all over the place through the complete village. But still I feel that the russians spot me a bit too easy. They also seem to hear my "silent" knockout from quite a distance. Also when they notice something suspicious, to a degree where they go into combat mode, I guess the alarm should be raised or at least they should investigate what's going on, instead of just staring at a house forever.  :P Overall I have the feeling that I have to follow a very specific path to successfully take out all three officers.

A whole different problem is that when distracting a soldier as the Mole, the soldier sometimes doesn't turn in my direction or turns back right away. Several times I had to walk away and talk to him again, until he finally kept looking in my direction. I guess this is more a problem with the Arma AI in general, but it is a bit annoying when it happens every second time you want to distract someone.

The rest of the mission worked flawless and I especially enjoyed the escaping the island part. The airport area however was rather underwhelming. You know, when you put a large, red marker on the map saying "keep out", I just have to go there. But all the vehicles where locked and nothing else of interest was to be found.

In the briefing, the marker link "administration building" doesn't seem to work correctly.
And a small quality of life improvement would be, when the "talk" and "knock out" actions only appeared when there actually is a unit in reach. Btw, I love the reaction of the Mole when Tomas tries the action on him.  :D


Three Valleys & Preparation
Alright, it's been quite a while since I last played the following missions during A2 times. Therefore I can only vaguely remember these. I can't say if there has always been so much substance to the preparation missions, with the expanding camp and the talk options for several members of my team. I thoroughly enjoyed the overall atmosphere and the music in the background was very well chosen. The group management is a cool feature, although with interface size set to small, the character descriptions where a bit hard to read. Also I feel a little bit more color would suit the menu quite well.

There were a few new members in the camp. While Jegor and his men where mentioned somewhere in a briefing, I didn't feel any connection to them. As you have scraped their story arch from Petrovka Strike, where I think they where originally introduced, I think it would be cool to see them in a cutscene somewhere beforehand. Nothing fancy, just a small shot of the refugees coming from Grishino and joining your group. For now it somehow felt a bit disconnected.

When talking to Martin, he mentioned the Spetsnaz which I had supposedly killed in Gvozdno. However, as I went for Grishino to rescue Tomek and therefore arrived to late in Gvozdno, I actually never killed anyone there. I did like how bitter Tomek was about the loss of Miroslav. Made me feel even more for my men.


The mission itself was pretty much straightforward. My team had a good starting position for the attack on the farm and I could clear the area without any casualties. Teams Wolf and Eagle however both were killed during the attack. At the beginning, the radio message "Copy Wolf. Wait for my signal." appeared twice.

I didn't expect the mission to be that easy and of course it didn't take long for the counter attack. The incoming artillery actually had me scared for a moment while trying to get my men away from the farm into the forest. As I expected enemy presence in Tulga I approached the village from the east. But no sign of the Red Star guys, only some angry civilians. The reveal that Sergej's mother had been killed was a bit unemotional. Somehow I expected a bit more drama. The US soldiers showing up at the end was almost hilarious and left a lighthearted feel to the mission. Oh, and there was a dead...  transgender person(?) lying in front of one destroyed building. Looked a bit weird.

So far I really enjoyed this mission. It's slowly shaping up to the grand finale. Hopefully I can find some time the next days to continue playing. I'm really exited to see what you came up for the final showdown.
23
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Clayman on 01 Feb 2024, 18:48:01 »
No, I didn't hear anything suspicious. I approached the car from the forest (to the right of the car), exactly where the three(?) Red Star guys later showed up. That's probably why it felt so disconnected. I'll keep my ears open the next time I play the mission.
24
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Undeceived on 01 Feb 2024, 18:35:48 »
When you approached Miroslav's car, didn't you hear the woman, crying out in pain?
25
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Clayman on 01 Feb 2024, 17:40:57 »
Yes, that woman. I thought the Red Star guys used Miroslav to lure Tomas into the trap. At least I didn't notice her before the cutscene triggered.

Regarding Dimitri, I don't know. As I have played the campaign several times and this was the first time I thought about that, I guess it should be fine. It was just an idea that crossed my mind and I felt like sharing it.^^
26
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Undeceived on 01 Feb 2024, 09:23:33 »
Thanks! Notes taken. :good:

 
Quote
Who is that woman?
Ehm, what woman? :D The one at Miroslav's broken car? That's just a random woman the Red Star used to lure Tomas into the trap.

Quote
When Dimitri's goal was only to stop Tomas, wouldn't it been easier for him to just kill Tomas in the beginning?
Yes, it would result in a very short campaign... but still, Dimi's plan doesn't make too much sense to me when thinking about it.  :P
Hm, never thought about that. :D I guess Dimitri doesn't want to kill him necessarily. He only hopes that Tomas stops after so many losses and let's it rest. Maybe he even wanted to turn him... Do you think that this needs further clarification at any part of the campaign?
27
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Clayman on 30 Jan 2024, 17:29:16 »
...and the journey continues...
Again I'll keep this short for now, until I reach the new / updated missions.


Inner Abscess:
This starts off with a very atmospheric walk through foggy woods. It sets a really great mood for the mission to come and I particularly enjoyed it when Miroslav started coughing. A great little detail that adds really well to the feel.

When I came close to the river and the cutscene kicked in, in the first scenes some of my men didn't have any weapons.

After I had killed the Red Star guys and took the Manifest, Kamil refused to move. No matter what I ordered him, he just stood there not moving at all. I had to restart the mission. Second time everything worked fine.


Alexej Pribotow:
In the briefing it says "It's crazy how it goes go sometimes!" And the next sentence should probably say "sooner or later" rather than "earlier or later".

I kinda expected to get shot at the roadblock while searching the parked vehicles for any loot. But the russians didn't seem to care a lot.

While driving into the town, I liked Sergej telling me the way. At least for the first two turns, he went silent after that. I have to say, I still believe the mission would benefit from the player doing the different tasks themselfs. Going to the bar as Miroslav and placing the GPS as Sergej. But the cutscene was executed very well, nonetheless.

At the end when capturing Pribotow, the autosave was a bit too early. When reloading that save, I ended up in the shack again with the fade to black effect and being teleported outside again. You might put the autosave after the teleport, if you know what I mean.


Petrovka Strike:
As I had already covered this one before, I don't have that much to add, except of course that this mission turned out really great.  :good:

Only two smaller issues I noticed:
I took the truck from the ambush and drove to Grishino, jumped out and grabbed the sniper rifle. After I was finished gearing up, I couldn't find the pilot anywhere. As the marker for the task was exactly where I had parked the truck, I was afraid I had accidentally ran him over. Obviously I missed that I had already triggered the conversation. It took some time until I found him sitting in the helicopter waiting for Kamil and me.

You might want to wait for the player to have actually taken the rifle from the truck and he is on foot before you continue with the pilot conversation.

Also the 'Talk to Pilot' task didn't tick off at all.

I went for Tomek in this take, as it is closer to how the campaign originally played out and an additional group member could come in handy later on. Looking forward to see how the aftermath turns out on my next playtrough, when I go for Gvozdno.


Resurrection:
I guess I will never get tired of watching this cutscene. It's so perfectly orchestrated. The camera angles, the music accompanying the scenes. It's almost like watching a movie. Just pure epicness.

Just two questions that came to my mind while playing:
Who is that woman?
When Dimitri's goal was only to stop Tomas, wouldn't it been easier for him to just kill Tomas in the beginning?
Yes, it would result in a very short campaign... but still, Dimi's plan doesn't make too much sense to me when thinking about it.  :P


Edit: Almost forgot, there was an error message in Resurrection after the scene at Lucies grave:
Code: [Select]
Error in expression <ep 1;

if (hatnvg) then {tomas linkItem _nvGoggle; };

setAccTime 1;

TitleCut [>
Error position: <_nvGoggle; };

setAccTime 1;

TitleCut [>
Error Undefined variable in expression: _nvgoggle
28
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Clayman on 29 Jan 2024, 20:51:21 »
Quote
there is this one mission that no one except me has played so far
Okay, now I'm exited of what is to come...  :clap:

I kinda like the idea of an optional / hidden task for the first mission. On the other hand I guess after Tomas just lost his best friend and is surrounded by enemies, he probably wants to return to his men as quickly as possible. And as none of the equipment is carried over to the next mission, any 'rewards' collected in the first mission are pretty much useless anyways. But gameplay wise it would be cool, nonetheless. Just my 2 cents.^^


So, meanwhile I played both Martins List missions. Both worked pretty flawless.

Martins List 1:
I found something to loot.  :D While all the vehicles in Novy Sobor are empty as expected, there are a few smoke shells in the bus. Nothing really useful though.

When placing the dogtags in the church, there is no task complete hint or any other indication and the action to place the dogtags doesn't disappear. I wasn't sure if I had missed something at first, especially regarding the russian soldier  standing in the church, but in the briefing the task showed as completed so I thought it should be fine and I moved on.

The rest of the mission played out very well, except that I suck at preparing an ambush. Took me several tries to take out the trucks.
One small quality of life improvement regarding the teamswitch I would have appreciated: Whenever I switch to a different unit, AI Tomas tends to give orders to his squadmates and in the worst case, they could run off and come across some russians somewhere, provoking an unwanted firefight. It would be cool if the player unit would always be the group leader, just to keep control of the AI.


Martins List 2:
This was a very fun little mission. I remember the last time I played this mission, it was a real struggle to get away from the base at the end, with lots of infantry, several boats and a hind chasing me down. This time it was a much better experience. While there were still some boats around and eventually the hind showed up too, I didn't get shot to pieces time after time again. Once I reached the coast and ran to the forest, I didn't encounter any enemies at all. It was almost a bit too easy.^^

After the cutscene at the fishery harbor, Kamil immediately opened fire on the russians before I could actually spot them and eventually killed them all by himself. Quite handy that guy.  :D

After blowing up the generators, there again was no task hint. But at least Kamil said the job was done.

During the cutscene at the end of the mission there was a fullsceen nvg overlay. Not sure if that is intentional or because I had the nvg equipped when triggering the cutscene. While it makes it easier to see what's going on, it doesn't fit too well to the overall guerilla vibe of the mission and none of my men were actually wearing one during the scene.

One small mistake I noticed during the briefing in the Plan section:
"To infiltrate the harbour, we'll to steal a boat..."


So far I really had a lot of fun with these missions. They both seem very solid with no bugs or showstoppers.
Looking forward to play the next ones.
29
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Undeceived on 28 Jan 2024, 18:36:47 »
Thanks!

I won't change much in these missions, just as a small info. I'm rather focused on the technical side of things here. But I love to read all the thoughts and ideas on the missions and their details, so keep it up. :D

In the later missions this is different. For example, there is this one mission that no one except me has played so far (it's completely new). It's a very complex and long mission and I definitely need feedback on the design and the mission flow. But in the missions that were published already, that is especially 1-13, I don't need that much of design feedback. Exceptions are Petrovka Strike (9) and The Picture (12), which were vastly changed after our discussions in the last version.

Thanks a lot for the time you guys are investing in this. :good:
30
Arma3 - Single Player Beta Testing / Re: [SP/CAMP] Black Lands
« Last post by Gruntage on 28 Jan 2024, 10:13:31 »
Alright so it was essentially a piece of foreshadowing, similar to a movie Easter egg, that's fine.

I think I was just expecting more from the UAZ section since the vehicle breaking down was a very noticeable event (the loud sound and Tomas' comment). It seemed like a very easy opportunity to add more substance. I guess my core issue with it is that the intel doesn't effect how the mission plays out particularly; Tomas still makes the shocking discovery at the barn regardless of whether he picks up the intel. The intel feels rather inconsequential if I'm being brutally honest.

It would have been very interesting if Tomas was able to connect the dots when reading the intel (regardless of whether the player did) and then have the rest of the mission play out entirely differently. Potentially you'd have Tomas sprinting south far sooner and bypass returning to his men. But that would require extensive redesign.

My first impression of the intel was that of 'ok' and waiting for something to happen. If I knew the campaign well, then I would already know about Petja's torture and his 'betrayal' and so the intel isn't presenting me with anything new and groundbreaking particularly; nothing that I didn't really know before. Especially if the events that the intel describes are revealed about 5 minutes later. Perhaps a better way of executing this easter egg would be to foreshadow an event that happen far later in the campaign. I suppose the danger then is the player having forgotten about the intel when said events play out. This is a tricky problem to solve and I probably would have opted for a different purpose for the intel.

Alternatively, when reading the intel, a task could have popped up for the player to inflict some damage in revenge for Dmitri; like sabotaging an enemy asset for instance. The intel could have given the location of said asset. It might make some sense narratively for the character to do some last minute damage before returning to his men. Tomas' grief for Dmitri could give way to rage, and so he would naturally jump at the opportunity to inflict damage. The UAZ breaking down seems like a very easy route to achieve this.

From a meta standpoint, the UAZ breaking down would essentially be presenting the player with a question/choice, 'Do you want to more stuff to do?'. The player can choose to play safe and bypass the UAZ altogether if they want, or they could take a more dangerous path to do some damage to the enemy. Player's choice and I like seeing this in missions. There's an element of role play there as well that I love to see.

Lastly, if nothing else, I probably would have put the NV goggles in the UAZ instead of the Repair Truck, so there's more of a payoff.

That's my take on it anyway. You don't have to act on any of this; it was just some thoughts I had...been a long time since I played this campaign so every mission feels new.

Anyway, onto...

Awakening

Not much needs to be said about this one other than that it works fine from what I can see. I travelled south and approached the meeting point from near the coast. In the past I think I tried going through the town and that was much harder. The patrolling vehicles were a nice touch and the music was well chosen. The only point of criticism I would add is I felt that the cinematic inside the church was a little too dark. I would consider adding some form of low light, just so we can see the characters' faces a little better. Maybe a lantern although use a different light from the default. I would say add a couple of candles to fit the location but I know you're limited to what objects are available.

Other than that, good. Will move onto 'Starting to Inflame Again' soon.

Just something else I remembered as well when playing. I noticed that you draw particular attention to a certain black Skoda during one of the cinematics. I think the car is of significance from when I last played. The drawing attention to the car is quite on-the-nose, so to speak. I wonder if there's a way of doing so it that's more subtle. Like, if I had two characters talking and this car was in the background, then I wonder if that's enough for the player to remember the car. This is a bit of nitpick and isn't really important.
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 10